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Chronic fuel shortages still exist in Zimbabwe
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March 30, 2006, 05:45
Zimbabwe hopes to seal an oil supply deal with Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo, Equatorial Guinea's visiting president, to help ease its chronic fuel shortages, a senior Zimbabwean official said yesterday.
Obiang, who arrived yesterday, will meet Robert Mugabe, the Zimbabwean president, to consolidate ties established two years ago after Harare helped break up an alleged international coup plot directed at the oil-rich West African state.
George Charamba, Mugabe's press secretary, told journalists Zimbabwe and Equatorial Guinea would use the three-day visit to discuss political and security co-operation and possible trade and business deals. "It is essentially a state visit. It is partly to say thank you to Zimbabwe, and it is partly to look at co-operation," he said. "They are an oil-producing country and we are trying to see how we can operationalise some kind of agreement (on fuel supply to Zimbabwe)," Charamba said.
Third largest oil producer
Equatorial Guinea, sub-Saharan Africa's third largest oil producer, is a welcome friend for Zimbabwe as it struggles with economic meltdown and isolation from Western countries which have criticised Mugabe over accusations of repression.
Once one of Africa' most promising economies, Zimbabwe now fights serious fuel, food and foreign currency shortages as well as the world's highest inflation rate.
Mugabe's government played a key role in 2004 in breaking up an alleged coup plot directed against Obiang, himself frequently described as one of Africa's most repressive leaders.
Zimbabwe officials arrested some 70 South African mercenaries who had stopped in Harare as part of the alleged plot and a Zimbabwe court later sentenced Simon Mann, the group's alleged leader and a former British special forces officer, to seven years in jail on weapons charges. - Reuters
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